Chuck, My Way
by bboi89
Summary: Chuck Bartowski is not who he seems to be. What if he was one of the best before leaving the espionage business. How would the story progress with a Chuck who is not as clueless as he seemed in the show? Enjoy reading Chuck, my way!And please, review!
1. The beginning of the end

The reason why I placed this story into the Chuck category was the fact that Alex rider elements will be kept at a minimum in this story. While the first few chapters may seemed to be purely Alex Rider, the following chapters will take place in the Chuck universe hence, the Chuck category. Review! Constructive critism is greatly appreciated. Cheers =)

Disclaimer: Both Alex Rider and Chuck does not belong to me.

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Prologue

_5__th__ December 1995, Peak District._

A burst of gunfire disturbed the tranquillity of Peak district. The birds roosting in the trees flew noisily into the sky, covering the sound of a body falling to the ground. Slipping his Walter P22 into his tracksuit, Alex Rider made his way cautiously into the clearing.

Ever since MI6 came into the knowledge that he was trained by Scorpia to be an accomplished assassin, an organisation which they acknowledged for their far superior assassination skills, they had no qualms about sending him on the more dirty assignments, namely assassinations. After all, they reasoned, who would suspect a child of committing murder. A child, after all, is one who should be protected from the cruelties of the world, someone who should not lose their innocence before they grow into adulthood. Why they did not apply this reasoning to themselves is beyond him.

This time, they had loaned him to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). His partner was a young woman named Angeline Baker, which was obviously an alias. Sometimes, he wondered why he did not get to have an alias at all. The world was so damn unfair. He would have preferred a name like Wilson Wellington. Okay, maybe not. But he sure as hell would like a name that does not lead back to him. Honestly, how could he go deep into enemies' territory with such a well-known name? The fact that he was still living was a testament to his amazing luck, and not the competence of MI6.

Stopping near the body, he crouched and heaved the body on its back. Not too long ago, he would have grimaced at the blood still spurting from the gunshot wounds. He would have felt self-loathing, felt tainted. However, all he could feel now is numbness, a sort of detachment from the situation. It was as if he did not care that he had just killed a man. That he had just separated the man from his family. The amount of assassination assignments they heaped on him was huge. That, he had learnt a long time ago, was the true face of the government. Heck that was the way all governments operates. The intelligence agencies he was loaned to definitely do not care, judging by the many requests made to the CIA for his participation in their operations.

Searching through the man's body, he found what he was looking for; a piece of paper, with a line of code written on it. He took out his phone, making doubly sure that it was not the one Mr Smithers gave him. He could still remember knocking himself out with the dart in his improved phone. Mr Smithers had teased him mercilessly about it for months.

"Angeline, Alex here. I got the package. Rendezvous in ten mikes time." He slipped the paper carefully into his pockets and started walking to the meeting place. Sighing tiredly, he wondered how long he would keep on doing this; staining his hands with the blood of others, killing people upon orders. He could no longer bring himself to care if they were innocent people, just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the first few assignments, he had tried to look for something bad in his targets, an abusive nature, or anything remotely bad. After those assignments, he began to realise that it was futile. Intelligence agencies tend to look at the bigger picture. These people may not be bad, but the things they contribute to unknowingly leads to undesirable situations, situations which the MI6 or any other agencies did not like; situations which gave them no choice but to neutralise these people, or so they say. Privately, he thought that they were just too lazy to think things through; after all, why waste time and resources trying to solve this problem when there was a simpler solution. He found himself distancing from his targets, usually giving them names like "Target A" or "Target B" to avoid personifying them. He found himself mindlessly following orders, unable to bring himself to care about the consequences his actions have upon the target's loved ones. He was fifteen at the time he came to this startling revelation.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, he saw his partner waiting in the car. He did not even realise that he had reached the meeting place. Silently, he began to berate himself. Carelessness will get him killed. As Alan Blunt would always say, "You're never too young to die."

He could feel Angeline looking at him out of the corner of her eyes on the way back to their hotel. He could feel her concern, yet he could not bring himself to care. She was different from any of the other agents he had worked with. She was much more carefree. She was not secretive about her life outside of work. In fact, just the other day, she had confided in him that she hoped to be able to get home in time for her daughter's birthday before she leaves for med school. Because of this, he had taken unnecessary risks on this mission. He used to spend weeks going over each and every detail of his target's routine before setting up for a perfect shot, but for this mission, he had only spent three days before killing the target. It was sloppy work, and it had cost him, if the throbbing from his wounded arm was any indication.

His target had expected the hit. For this hit, he had been sloppy in his surveillance, hasty to know as much as he could about his target. He was spotted several times, almost caught once. He had made his target jumpy and paranoid, not a good combination for an assassin, yet he was confident in his skills and his belief that his age would give pause to his target's reflex to shoot. He was right and his age once again worked to his advantage. However, he knew that this would not last long. There were already rumours floating around of a teenage assassin who had a perfect record. Anyone he was ordered to kill, die. The next time, he would not be so lucky. With a sigh, he realised that he had long given up the idea of leaving the espionage business.

He felt Angeline turn to look at him when he sighed, but she did not say anything. She knew how a person would feel after doing an assassination. After all, she had done a few assassinations herself before she had enough and requested for a transfer to an analyst's position. In fact, this was to be her last mission out in the field before she transferred to desk work. He was slightly envious at the fact that she has choices.

Soon, they pulled up at the car park of the motel they were staying in. Instead of going straight into their room, she dragged him into the diner. "Come on Alex, you must be hungry. You've not eaten much this morning," with an impish grin, she dragged him into a booth and ordered for both of them.

"But Aunt Angie, I'm on a diet!" he whined.

"Nonsense, only girls go on diet. Growing boys like you need lots and lots of food," she cooed disturbingly at him. The patrons at the diner listening in snickered at the conversation. These two had been the entertainment of the diner for three days. Each time the boy tries to be uncooperative; the woman pulls something out of her sleeves to deal with him.

Alex on the other hand, was really getting irritated with the impossible brunette. Here he was, trying to get the mission over as soon as possible so that she could go home to her family and her desk job, and does he get any gratitude? No! What he got for his efforts was being a joke. He could remember a time long ago when he did not mind such harmless fun, but those were long ago. Ever since he was shot by Scorpia-outside the MI6 headquarters no less!-he learnt to be serious during mission time. His psych was so traumatised that even in the downtime between each mission, he forgot how to let go and have fun like the teenager that he was.

"Alex, you got to learn how to let go. Have fun! Unleash the inner child," Angeline managed to sound sincere and serious, even though she looked as though she was having the time of her life teasing her favourite nephew.

"Angeline, we are still on a mission, and we are not out of the danger zone."

"Alex, listen to you! You are still a child. This world is not meant for you. Killing is not meant for you. Please, try to get out. Try to leave this life behind you," she pleaded.

"I've long given up on myself. This is what I am, this is what I do. Look at me, and tell me that I can go back to what I was before joining up with MI6. Look me in the eyes, Baker, and tell me that I can do it."

"Alex, I" she could not bring herself to continue. In her eyes, he could see the conflict warring inside her mind. On one hand, she wanted to lie to him, tell him that everything will be alright. But she knew that she could not lie to him, not after knowing that he had been lied to his whole life.

With a contemptuous "I thought so," he turned on his heels and walked away. That was when everything went to hell. A burst of gunfire sprayed through the window. He was shot in the arm, his left arm thankfully. Overturning a table, he took out his Walter P22 and returned fire. Looking behind him, he saw Angeline lying in a pool of her own blood.

Letting loose a war cry, his vision tunnelled and all he could see was the two men firing at him through the windows. He was not sure what happened. One moment, he was looking at Angeline, the next; he was outside the diner with two dead men lying on the ground with shocked expressions on their faces.

Scrambling back into the diner, he slipped and slide his way through the carnage to where Angeline lay. She was breathing heavily and barely conscious. Slipping his phone into his hand, he speed dialled their contact. "This is Panther. Mission has gone to ground zero. I repeat, mission had gone to ground zero. I got an agent down, and I need med vac at the Flamingo Motel." "Affirmative, med vac will reach you in fifteen minutes."

Throwing his phone to the side, he tore strips of cloth from his inner shirt and put pressure on her wounds. To his dismay, the cloth quickly became soaked with her blood. He found his vision blurring, and realised that there were tears running down his face. He was stunned beyond belief. The numbness that had built up these past few months had started to thaw.

"Rider, this is you. You are not an emotionless killing machine. You are still a teenager with growing hormones."

"Damn it, stop talking so much. Come on, this is your last mission. You're going back to your family after this. You've got to hang on, for Eleanor."

"I won't make it. I know my own body. Just, just help me tell Eleanor and her father that I missed them, and I have always loved them. Just help me tell Stephen that I'm sorry."

"Damn it, Angeline Baker! Tell them yourself. You can do it, you're a strong woman."

"Hannah."

"What?"

"Hannah Bartowski. That's my real name," he could tell that she would not survive. Even the effort of speaking seems too much to her. Cradling her head against his chest, he sobbed heartbrokenly. Here was a woman who had dedicated and sacrificed so much for her country. Here was a woman who would not let the espionage world change her, who was so caring that even to a complete stranger like him, she would strive to get him to open up, get him to choose a better life.

Suddenly, the desire to leave the espionage business behind burned brightly. For Hannah Bartowski, he would do it. He would fight tooth and nail to get the life he deserves, and for her, he would complete this one last mission successfully before he hand in his resignation letter.


	2. The Last Mission

This is the second chapter of my story. As you can see, we are still in the Alex Rider universe. I'm not totally sure how long it'll take, but I have got a few ideas about Alex Rider's conversion into Chuck Bartowski, so this should take a few more chapters.

Love the reviews guys! And yes, we are looking at a much younger Chuck here.

Anyways, read and review =) cheers

Disclaimer: Neither Alex Rider nor Chuck belongs to me.

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The Last Mission

_7__th__ April 1996, Prague_

A non-descript young man walked into the slums. Dressed in dark colours, he was carrying a Nike sports bag. The occupants that saw him walk in quickly averted their eyes. Somehow, something in their heads is screaming at them to _stop looking at him_ and mind their own business, as far away from him as possible.

Alex Rider, or Wilson Parker as he now call himself, cursed silently in his head. Already, news had started spreading in the slums, and he could sense the tension in the air. He could see kids being hauled indoors, doors being double-locked, or even being _triple-_locked. They just had to pick today of all days to show such paranoia. This threw a serious wrench into his plans. Initially, he had planned on using the confusion of the slums to blend in. Now, no crowd is available for him to hide in if he was discovered. However, this also means that there will be less collateral damage. Now, where did that come from? Oh, the Bartowski woman.

She would have approved. He had not cared about collateral damage for a few months now. To him, the end results mattered. Who cares that one or two lives will be lost in the process, if it means millions more could be saved? He used to care, but the missions began to change him, forcing him to think logically instead of emotionally. In short, he became the perfect agent, not caring about anything except the mission, and the orders. It was thanks to a Hannah Bartowski, that he found himself again. He found himself cracking a smile when he thought about a joke she had cracked. He found himself making an effort to avoid killing whenever he can, to search for another alternative besides ending the person's life.

When she had first met him in Washington D.C, she had disbelief written all over her face. He had wondered, then, how the CIA could afford to have field agents who could not hide their emotions. Looking at the Director of the CIA, he could see the man shared the same sentiments, if the tensing of the shoulders and tightening of the lips is any indication. Throughout the briefing, he could feel her looking at him from the corner of her eyes. Finally having enough, he interrupted the Director's mission brief and turned to look at her. She looked awed and fearful at the same time. No one, _no one_ interrupted Director Johnson and live to tell the tale.

She opened her mouth, presumably to ask a question, only to clamp it down with a squeak. Her fearful glance was directed behind him. Turning back to face the director, he was amused to see the man's thunderous expression. "Sorry sir, please carry on," he did not even try to hide his amusement at the current situation.

Forcing down his anger, the director continued with his briefing. The boy, no matter how deceptively weak he looked, was responsible for almost destroying Scorpia. It was because of him, that Scorpia operations in other countries started to weaken. Holes had started to appear in the impregnable defence around their operations, flaws which would not have been there if not for the fall of Scorpia's base of command in Britain.

However, the remnants of Scorpia command have relocated onto American soil. The organisation in America is proving difficult to destroy, hence the decision by the US president to request assistance from their foreign counterparts. This mission was fairly straightforward. There will be a meeting for the rest of the Scorpia leaders in two months time. Their job is to intercept any messages that may tell them the time, date and venue of the meeting.

They always say that even the most well laid plans would not survive the battle. Their mission was straightforward, but as always, Murphy law keeps coming into play. This time, however, he has no one to blame but himself. In his haste to complete the mission, he did sloppy work. He had alerted the enemy to their presence, he had made them paranoid, and very afraid. Enemies like Scorpia do not go down easily, and if cornered, you can be guaranteed that they will fight back like a rabid dog.

The code they had managed to acquire in Peak district was a nothing but a trap, one he could have foreseen if he had paid more attention. The messenger just a bait, and he had led them straight to Hannah. It was his fault that she had died, while he had barely escaped with his life.

Today, he had come for a Scorpia operative named Owen Wilkinson. He used to be a lowly assassin at the bottom of the food chain, but ever since he had brought down most of Scorpia's command, reorganization took place. Now, he is in charge of a cell based in Prague and he is to be present at the Scorpia summit at the end of August.

Slipping into an alleyway, he burrowed into a large pile of rubbish and settled in for a long wait. He could hear Owen's men patrolling the slums more frequently than usual. It seems that news of a strange young man in the slums had reached Owen's ears. Closing his eyes, he settled into a light doze, knowing that there was nothing he could do while there was still daylight.

Awakened by his biological alarm, he opened his eyes to almost complete darkness. Sitting there for a few minutes to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, he busied himself rubbing dark camouflage cream on his face. Pocketing a knife and some bugs given to him by Mr Smithers, he left the alley soundlessly. Taking extra care to glance around corners, he was able to elude the night patrols. However, two streets away from his destination, he literally ran into a three man patrol. The patrol was surprised at seeing an intruder so close to base and hesitated. Alex had no such compulsion. Rushing into their midst, he spun quickly and slit one man's throat open. Throwing his knife into another man's throat, he chopped the third man's Adam apple before dropping him with a well aimed punch to the temple. The sound of the bodies dropping onto the ground seemed to echo in the slums. Dragging the three men into a nearby alley, he covered the three bodies with rubbish, but not before relieving one man of his gun.

While he knew that using a gun in the slums was suicide since the sound of a gunshot would attract the enemy quicker than he could say Scorpia, it felt assuring to feel the comforting weight of a gun in his waistband. It was easy to recognise Owen's place of operations. Look for the most fortified house with a number of guards placed around it and you have your enemy's location. The shacks around the base are empty, and checked regularly by the guards. However, after getting information from a local CIA contact, he knew a couple of things about the security around the base. The contact was good. He took note of everything, from the duration of each shift to the time they usually do their patrol of the shacks.

An assassin can only survive one way. He has to assume, for every single day of his life, his life is in danger. A leader of a Scorpia's cell, on the other hand, will be assuming that each day of his life could be his last; this makes it so much harder for him to infiltrate the base. In modern espionage, security consists of using both people and technology. Technology does not sleep, cannot be bribed and does not have to be paid monthly. Hidden security cameras dotted the walls around the base, he was fairly confident that he had spotted all the security cameras, but he could not be sure until he broke into Owen's place. All security, no matter how good, will have a flaw in its design. It may be a blind spot in the cameras, or it may be a guard that could be bribed. In this case, both are useless. Blind spots in the cameras are rectified by placing human guards at these exact blind spots, and these guards are so terrified of Owen that they would not even dream of betraying him.

However, the guards that Owen placed around his base are slum kids. Apparently, Owen had deemed it too demeaning for his own men to stand guard. That was both stupid and careless. These slum kids are almost the same size as him, giving him the option of disguising himself as one of them. The second mistake that Owen had made was to insist on making those kids wear uniforms. All he had to do was to steal one of the uniforms and walk to one of the camera's blind spot. From there, a small stab of a tranquilizer dart and he was guaranteed a way in, and out.

When there are security cameras in a secure facility which you are trying to infiltrate, there are a few options you can take. You could go running from blind spot to blind spot, looking like a complete idiot to anyone who happened to stumbled onto you, not to mention suspicious as hell. This will result in alarms being raised, and while he was fairly confident that he can make an escape, it was not what he wanted.

The second option, which he had decided he would take, was to behave like you belonged there and hope for the best. It was ten at night, the man monitoring the cameras would have had a long day and he will be tired; hence, he would not be paying special attention the camera monitors as long as there are no suspicious people, or suspicious movement of any kind.

Of course, that would have been enough, if there were no guards _inside_ the base. A single armed guard, obviously Scorpia trained, appeared in the corridor and hailed him.

"What are you doing inside here?" That was not good. The man was suspicious; it seems that slum kids in this place are not to be trusted. If he had to hazard a guess, some of them had tried to steal from this place, and those unfortunate souls were discovered. He hoped they had died a quick and relatively painless death, but knowing Owen, that would never happen. He knew Owen, from his time in Scorpia, and heard of his reputation. He likes to drag out his victims' demise, torturing them but never killing them. He had mastered torture to an art form, always keeping his victims on the brink of death, but never actually letting them die until they begged for it.

Putting a nervous look on his face, he let fear run across his face and swallowed visibly. "Are you doing what I think you're doing? Oh, Owen's not going to be pleased," he grinned maliciously, "who knows, maybe he'll give you to me to play with."

_Oh, this one's going down._ He did not move from his spot, letting the man believe that he was so terrified he could not move. _Three, two, and one-_ he struck quickly. Letting his instincts take over, he struck a blow to the man's throat. Even before the guard could register the pain, he had punched the man's diaphragm, forcing the air out of the man. From there, it was a simple matter to know the guard unconscious with a quick and accurate blow to his temple. Pulling the man across the corridor, he struggled to push the unconscious man into an unused closet, presumably a broom cupboard. Hefting a big piece of rock he had slipped into his pocket, he clubbed the unconscious man several times on the head, killing him. Hopefully, they will think the guard fell to a clumsy attack and help to hide his presence from Owen.

Five minutes later, he found himself picking the lock on a brown ornate door. This is the office of Owen Wilkinson. Not for the first time, he found himself grateful to his uncle Ian for teaching him these skills. Picking locks is an art form. You cannot be forceful; you must be gentle and have a hell of an imagination. Whenever his lock pick encounter an object, it will be added to the image in his mind's eye. Soon, he managed to figure out the mechanism behind the lock and cracked it. Before he opened the door, his eyes scanned over the door. _There_, he saw a single strand of hair, lodged between the door and the doorway. Putting the strand of hair inside a pocket for safekeeping, he slipped into the room. As he had guessed, there were no cameras inside the room. The business handled in this room cannot be recorded by cameras that were monitored by the guards; this suits him just fine, this means that he can go about his business in here without anyone the wiser.

One bug went into the phone used by Owen, one went under the window sill and the last one went under his chair. Job done, he proceeded back the way he had come. Locking the door, he replaced the strand of hair, and retraced his footsteps. This time, he pilfered an expensive looking vase and ran out, making sure to adopt a nervous expression. When he had lost his pursuers, he ditched the vase and the uniform. Changing back into his dark coloured clothes, he disappeared into the darkness, with none the wiser to his real mission.

_The next day_

Sitting comfortably in the alley he had come to think of as his, Alex sighed for the umpteenth time as he listened in on Owen's office. He had been listening for the past six hours, and as interesting as the information he overheard is, these information are not relevant to his current mission objective. However, this does not mean that he was not taking down all the information he could. Some of the stuff being said in the office were very interesting, such as Owen freelancing, using Scorpia's men to do his own operations to earn some money for himself. A recording of this conversation could turn out to be very useful.

This is a reason why spies always work in teams. When on long boring assignments like listening to the bad guys for the information you want, partners can always share the workload, taking shifts to listen to the bugs planted in the bad man's house. Also, it feels very reassuring to know that someone is watching your back. However, when you are working solo as long as Alex Rider, spy extraordinaire and budding assassin has, you learn a trick or two about going about missions alone. First, never ever focus on the task itself. Even while listening to the going on in the office, he is always alert for unwanted people walking onto him. While the alley he had chosen is far away from where the crowds are, there was always a possibility of people walking in on him; robbers dragging an unfortunate victim in to extort their money, rapists dragging girls in for some fun or some shady deal which could not be done in the open. Also, listening in on the office ensures that he could not leave the alley for quite some time. He had three days worth of rations with him, five if he ate sparingly; Alex Rider is no stranger to hunger, in fact, he had experienced it so many times he had come to think of it as a stalker, unwanted, but never leaving you alone.

_Four days later_

Finally, he had heard something useful. He was on the last of his rations, and as disgusting as they taste, he would take the rations over hunger pangs any day. Hence, it was to his utmost relief when he suddenly heard Owen's voice turn respectful on the phone.

"Have you investigated into the break-in the other night?"

"Yes, it was just a slum kid who was supposed to be on duty. He claimed to fall asleep on the job, but his time of disappearance coincides with the break in. I had him tortured and killed."

"What of the guy monitoring the video feeds?"

"He is being taken care of even as we speak."

"Good. So I assume that we can still go according to plan?"

"Yes sir."

"Good, arrangements will be made for you. Just wait for your instructions."

While it seemed like the whole conversation was a waste of time, Alex was thrilled. Although he had not managed to get the location and exact date and time of the summit, he now knew that the day was drawing closer. Now, all he had to do was to figure out a way to get the CIA to crash the party. It seems like it is time for him to pay Owen another visit.


End file.
